Australian Scrub Python

The Australian scrub python (''Simalia kinghorni''), or simply scrub python is a species of snake in the family Pythonidae. The species is indigenous to forests of northern Australia. It is one of the world's longest and largest snakes, and is the longest and largest in Australia. Recently, it has been reclassified to the genus ''Simalia'' alongside a few other former ''Morelia'' species, but scientific debate over this continues.

Taxonomy

American herpetologist Olive Griffith Stull described the taxon in 1933 from a specimen at the Museum of Comparative Zoology that had been collected at Lake Barrine in north Queensland, classifying it as a subspecies of the amethystine python based on its larger number of scales. The specific name, ''kinghorni'', is in honour of Australian herpetologist and ornithologist James Roy Kinghorn. It was first raised to species status by Wells and Wellington in 1984, and given the name ''Australiasis kinghorni''. American biologist Michael Harvey and colleagues investigated the amethystine python complex and confirmed its classification as a separate species based on cladistic analysis of mitochondrial cytochrome b sequences and morphology. In 2014 cladistic analysis of nuclear and mitochondrial genes of pythons and boas, R. Graham Reynolds and colleagues concluded that the support for its distinctness was weak.

Description

This snake is commonly considered arboreal or tree-dwelling, making it one of the world's largest and longest arboreal species of snakes. This snake has an ornate back pattern consisting of browns and tans, with many different natural variations. Its belly is usually white, sometimes with some yellows.

Size

''S. kinghorni'' exhibits an unusual sexual dimorphism among pythons. Males are usually a third longer and twice as heavy. Females reach sexual maturity with a snout-vent length of about while males reach sexual maturity with snout-vent length of .A. Freeman, C. Bruce: ''The Things You Find on the Road: Roadkill and Incidental Data as an Indicator of Habitat Use in Two Species of Tropical Pythons''. In: R. W. Henderson, R. Powell (Hrsg.): ''Biology of the Boas and Pythons''. Eagle Mountain Publishing Company, Eagle Mountain 2007, , pp. 153–165. On Tully, a river about 140 km south of Cairns, 24 adult females were measured. They had an average length from head to body of and a mass of . In the same place, 80 adult males had an average snout-vent length of and a weight of . Of these, the largest male had a head-to-body length of and a weight of .
In the past, data on the lengths of individuals longer than 6 meters were repeatedly mentioned in the literature, and all of them today can no longer be verified and cause serious doubts, in particular, in Fearn & Sambono (2000). The most extreme information comes from Worell, who reported in 1954 second-hand about an animal allegedly long from Greenhill in Cairns, described it as in 1958 and repeatedly mentioned the same thing in 1963 under the first length. He leaves open the question of whether the mass refers to a corpse or to skin stretched more than . Dean also describes an extremely large specimen from Barron Falls in 1954 with a total length of , which, however, consisted of an artificially stretched frame that decomposed in the tropics for more than two days, though it was considered reliable by the staff of the ''Guinness Book of World Records''. The largest female Australian scrub python, seriously measured to date, was caught in Palm Cove near Cairns in 2000, had a total length of , on the head and on the tail, a circumference in the middle of the body of and a weight of . The largest male seriously measured to date was discovered in Kuranda in 2002, its length was , of which the length of the head was , and the incomplete tail was , and the weight was .S. L. Fearn: ''Notes on a maximal sized Scrub Python Morelia amethistina (Serpentes: Pythonidae) from Kuranda, North East Queensland''. Herpetofauna 32, 2002, pp. 2–3. However, individuals are also known measured even more large sizes, some can weigh more than with a length of more than .

Distribution and habitat

''S. kinghorni'' in mostly is found in Northern Australia, in Queensland and Cape York Peninsula. The species also occurs in several Islands of Torres Strait (e.g. Hinchinbrook). On the mainland, its range extends from the tip of the Cape York Peninsula south along the coastal rainforest through the Atherton Tableland, the forested eastern foothills of the Great Dividing Range, along the coast through Mount Speck to the Burdekin River south of Townsville.S. L. Fearn, D. Trembath: ''Southern distribution limits and a traslocated population of scrub python Morelia kinghorni (Serpentes: Pythonidae) in tropical Queensland''. Herpetofauna 36, Tom 2, 2006, pp. 85–87. In 2004, an even more southern population was described in the Conway rainforest, south of Airlie Beach. Accurate information about the population size and possible connections with more northern populations is not yet available. However, it is assumed that it was installed in 1990 by adult animals that escaped from the local zoo, and has been successfully distributed since then living within various forests and more densely vegetated parts of the Australian bush.

Diet

''S. kinghorni'' is one of the largest land predators in Australia, and depending on the habitat, age and size, the prey range can vary from small mammals, birds and reptiles to wallabies. The basis of the diet consists of birds and mammals. Among them, for example, rainbow bee-eaters (''Merops ornatus''), bush rats (''Rattus fuscipes''), northern quolls (''Dasyurus hallucatus''), spectacled flying fox (''Pteropus conspicillatus''), northern brown bandicoots (''Isoodon macrourus''), long-nosed bandicoots (''Perameles nasuta'') and striped possums (''Dactylopsila trivirgata''). In addition, on the outskirts of settlements, the species repeatedly feeds on domestic poultry.R. W. Martin: ''Field Observation of Predation on Bennett's Treekangaroo (Dendrolagus bennettianus) by an Amethystine Python (Morelia amethistina)''. Herpetological Review 26, Tom 2, 1995, pp. 74–76 Relatively often there is also predation of pythons on small wallaby species in particular agile wallabies (''Notamacropus agilis''), red-legged pademelons (''Thylogale stigmatica'') and Bennett's tree-kangaroos (''Dendrolagus bennettianus''). One of the largest animal victims documented to date was a adult mobile wallaby, which was swallowed by a female python long and weighing .S. Fearn: ''Morelia amethistina (Scrub Python). Diet''. Herpetological Review 33, Tom 1, 2002, pp. 58–59

In captivity

The Australian scrub python is somewhat rare in the pet trade outside of Australia. However, with captive breeding projects and hobbyists interested in the species, it is becoming more available, with its New Guinea counterparts being much more available (especially in the United States).

Gallery

Image:MoreliaAmethestinaSkin_Cairns2011.jpg, A 3.2-m-long, intact Australian scrub python skin in Australia: The snake that shed this skin would be significantly shorter than 3.2 m, as the snake's skin is folded on top of and below each scale. This causes a shed skin to be almost twice as long as the snake that shed it.
Image:Amethystine_Python.jpg, ''S. kinghorni'' from the Bronx Zoo in New York City
Image:Simalia kinghorni NorthQueensland.jpg, Wild ''S. kinghorni'', North Queensland
File:Amethystine python houseguest.JPG, Australian scrub python near Cooktown, Queensland, Australia, 2014
File:Amethystine Python visiting.JPG, Australian scrub python visiting a kitchen at a home near Cooktown, Queensland, Australia, 2014

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q783194

Apex predators
Reptiles described in 1933
Snakes of Australia
Pythonidae
Taxa named by Olive Griffith Stull